Van Gogh's "Still life with a plate of onions" | Episode 58

“Still life with a plate of onions,” Vincent Van Gogh, 1889, Arles (Wiki Commons)

Today’s podcast is part of a series on the conceptual topic of letter writing. You can also listen to the podcast via Apple or Spotify or in the Substack app. A full AI-generated transcript can be accessed on the desktop version.

For these eight weeks, I’ll bring you texts related to this topic. This series is an experiment for a new podcast season that I recorded to sync up with the holiday letter season and the epistolary form of my latest novel. Stay tuned for more fiction, word sketches, and cultural essays in 2025.

I’d love to hear what you think in the comments. Feel free to ask questions or share text ideas, even your own writing. Thank you!

What can a personal letter reveal about someone’s intentions? How might it deceive us?

Can letter writing be enough human connection for an isolated person?

What are the pros and cons of the wait time in letter sending and receiving, and what might it affect?

Keywords:

• Encountering the text - French crime TV!

• Pronunciation

• Van Gogh, the letter writer

• Human connection

• “Remedy against suicide”

Texts:

• Van Gogh’s letters

• Painting at the Kröller-Müller Museum

• Pronouncing Vincent Van Gogh

• L’art du crime - Le testament de Van Gogh

• Letter to Theo about his neighbor

• Life in the Yellow House

• Dickens’ remedy against suicide

David Hockney’s “Onions,” 1937